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The War on Terror
The era of the '''War of Terror' lasted from about 2001 AD until 2008 AD. It began with the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda. It then ended on the eve of Barrack Obama’s election as US president. The War on Terror began after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. A United States-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and Iraq leading to the end of the Taliban regime and Saddam Hussein's rule. Yet al-Qaeda and affiliated Islamist extremist groups continued to perform terrorist acts throughout the decade, including the 2004 Madrid train bombings, 7/7 London bombings in 2005, and the Mumbai attacks in 2008. The War on Terror generated extreme controversy around the world, with questions regarding the justification for certain US actions leading to a loss of prestige for the American government, both in and outside the United States. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin's prudent fiscal policies brought economic stability to Russia, but a backsliding from true democracy and an increasing sense of a New Cold War. History al-Qaeda The origins of al-Qaeda as a multi-national network inspiring seemingly indiscriminate acts of terror around the world can be traced to Afghanistan in the 1980s. The most extreme Jihadists from all over the Muslim world flooded to the country to fight with the Mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War (1979-89). Two groups were particularly prominent in the formation of al-Qaeda; those from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The philosophical roots of al-Qaeda can be traced to Egypt, and the author and thinker Sayyid Qutb. After returning from living in the United States in the late 1950s, he preached intense contempt for American and Western values and society, and its decadent obsession with sex, violence, and materialism. In his many publications, he advanced an Islamic fundamentalist ideology that was medieval in its outlook: that a pure Muslim community had been extinct for centuries, outside a vanguard fighting to re-establish it; all institutions of government, society, and democracy everywhere must be destroyed in a Jihad, even in secular Muslim states; and once achieved a utopian Islamic state would arise worldwide. Qutb himself would join the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood who played a role in Abdel Nasser’s rise to power in Egypt in 1952, as well as the Suez Crisis of 1956. Qutb himself was eventually arrested and executed in 1966 for criticising Nasser’s secular government, making him the first great martyr for this new form of Islamic zealotry. Extremist elements of the Muslim Brotherhood inspired by Qutb were responsible for the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, in the aftermath of his official recognition of Israel. In the subsequent government crackdown many would make their way to Afghanistan. The other key root of al-Qaeda was in Saudi Arabia. In 1979, a group of militant Muslims seized the Grand Mosque in Mecca, denouncing the ruling Al-Saud dynasty as having lost its legitimacy by becoming too Westernised. It took nearly two weeks of bloody fighting for the Saudi Arabian army to regain control of Islam's holiest site. This event would inspire many young Saudi Muslims to radicalise and join the Jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviets, who invaded that same year. One such young man was 19 year-old Osama bin Ladin, the son of a multi-billionaire Saudi construction-magnate. The forerunner al-Qaeda, called Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK), was founded in Afghanistan by a Palestinian called Abdullah Azzam, and bankrolled by the connections and personal wealth of Osama bin Ladin. The purpose of MAK was to recruit and train foreign Mujahideen for the war in Afghanistan. Since the West was tacitly supporting the fight against the Soviets, MAK was quickly able to establish a far flung network all over the world, including in the United States. During the Afghan war, bin Laden even personally participated in some of the fighting against the Soviets, garnering a heroic reputation throughout the Muslin world. The withdrawal of the Soviets in 1999, electrified the world of radical Islam. In its wake, MAK gradually transformed its training camps and network into al-Qaeda, an organisation bent on an international holy war. Initially its intended targets were to be secular Muslim states that did not adhere to what they considered pure Islam. However, this changed with the First Gulf War of 1990. Many devout Muslims were incensed when Saudi King Fahd invited US troops to come defend Saudi Arabia, the land of the two holiest places in Islam. None more so than bin Ladin, who had personally asked Fahd to allow the Mujahideen to defend the country instead. This combined with numerous other reasons to make the United States the number one target of al-Qaeda’s terrorist activities: US support of Israel and autocratic Muslim rulers; the spread of American culture in many Middle Eastern states, and Qutb’s scathing criticism of the decadence of American society; and the fundamentalist vision of a world-wide Islamic holy war taken to its logical conclusion against the last remaining superpower. Based in Sudan for a period in the early 1990s, al-Queda eventually re-established its headquarters in Afghanistan in 1996 under the patronage of the Taliban. As a group, al-Qaeda was an extremely loosely structured organisation. It relied on countless non-affiliated outspoken Muslim clerics around the world to radicalise alienated young Muslim men; mosques like the al-Farouq Mosque in Brooklyn run by Omar Abdel-Rahman known as “''The Blind Sheikh''”, and the al-Quds Mosque in Hamburg. A few young men were recruited, and brought to al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, the Sudan and elsewhere. There they were instructed in bomb-making and other paramilitary skills, and encouraged to train others on returning to their home-country, allowing the organisation to grow exponentially. Al-Qaeda’s operatives engaged in numerous terrorist attacks before the events of 2001: the 1992 bombing of the Gold Mohur hotel in Yemen where US troops stayed enroute to peacekeeping in Somalia; the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed nearly 200; and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole while refuelling in Yemen. Yet, the distinction was always rather vague between an al-Qaeda operative, and al-Qaeda offering training and funding to freelance terrorists and separate Jihadist groups. Al-Qaeda had links to: the Islamic faction of the Somalia Civil War (1991-present), and the group behind the Luxor Massacre in 1997 that killed 62 tourists in Egypt. By 1998, Osama bin Ladin was on the FBI’s "Ten Most Wanted" list, but numerous attempts were missed to capture or kill him, in part due to the distraction in the United States of the Monica Lewinsky Scandal. The forerunner of the 9/11 terrorist attacks was an event in February 1993. Five men led by Ramzi Yousef, who had spent time at an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, attacked the World Trade Centre in New York for the first time. The truck bomb was intended to send the North Tower crashing into the South Tower, bringing both towers down and killing tens of thousands of people. The first major extremist Islamic attack on American soil failed in its intended outcome, but killed six people and injured over a thousand. Ramzi Yousef himself escaped arrest until 1995 when he was exposed by an accidental explosion in a bomb-making factory in Manila. At the time he was planning a bomb attacks on 11 US passenger planes, as well as to assassinate Pope John Paul II on his visit to the Philippines. Yousef had often spoke of returning to finish the job on the World Trade Centre with his uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who would be the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attack. September 11 Attacks It was the idea of Pakistani born Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to hijack US passenger planes and use them as missiles to attack American landmarks, including the World Trade Centre at the heart of one of the world’s largest cities. Sometime in mid-1996, Khalid outlined his plan to Osama bin Laden, and with the approval of the go-ahead in early 1999, Khalid became a full-fledged member of al-Qaeda. The terrorist attack was part of bin Laden’s overall strategy to provoke the United States into invading Afghanistan, which he predicted would unite the forces of fundamentalist Islam into another Jihad against a superpower. For the operation, al-Qaeda search its vast network for suitable operatives, and selected four young engineering graduates from Hamburg, Germany who had been radicalised at the al-Quds Mosque; Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. The young men were Western-educated and spoke English, thus could travel to the United States without much question. In autumn 1999, the four men travelled to Afghanistan via Pakistan for training with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. On returning to Germany, they reported their passports stolen, to clear evidence of their visit to Pakistan, and applied for student visas to the United States. Three of the four applications were accepted. The application of Yemen born Ramzi bin al-Shibh was rejected; there was a general concern by US officials at the time that people from Yemen, which was struggling economically, would overstay their visas. He would remain involved in the plot as bin Laden’s go-between with the hijackers, but operationally was replaced by Saudi born Hani Hanjour, who had lived in the US twice before and already had a pilot licence. The four men arrived in the US separately in May 2000, and spent over a year in different flight-school in Florida and Arizona, as well as on Boeing simulators. Sixteen other “muscle hijackers” arrive in the US by the spring of 2001, all on student visas; one was refused entry due to suspicions he would overstay his in visa. After weeks of reconnaissance from July 2001, on rented aircraft and as passengers on commercial flights, the 19 hijackers were ready. On the morning of 11 September 2001, the 19 hijackers boarded four passenger planes: American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston; United Airlines 175 also out of Boston; American Airlines Flight 77 out of Washington; and United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark, New Jersey. All were large planes with long flights and heavily fuelled. The hijackers were seated in the first class section at the front of the planes, and the muscle hijackers had all successfully smuggled through security small retractable knives and canisters of tear gas or mace. Shortly after take-off, the hijackers stabbed several flight attendants and passengers, and then stormed the cockpit knifing both pilots. While the passengers were herded to the back section of the plane, tear gas was released in the forward section to deter any attempt to retake the cockpit. The pilot hijackers now had control of four passenger planes, and, once they turn off the flight transponder and move to low altitude, they became very difficult to locate. At 8:46 am, 30 minutes after Flight 11 had been taken, the five hijackers deliberately crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan, a potent symbols of America's power and influence. The impact left a gaping hole near the 93th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, and, with over 20,000 gallons of jet-fuel on-board, turned the impact floors into an inferno. The explosion travelled down elevator shafts to ignite fires on a number of floors, and showering burning debris over surrounding buildings and streets below. Only 14 people would escape from above the impact zone of the tower, and in some cases office workers leapt to their deaths rather than face the infernos now raging inside. As the evacuation of the tower got underway, television cameras broadcasted live images of what initially appeared to be a freak accident. Then at 9:03 am, 17 minutes after the first plane hit, Flight 175 appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the South Tower near the 60th floor, with similar effects. It immediately became clear that the United States was under attack. As millions watched the events unfolding in New York, Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington DC, before crashing into the western façade of the Pentagon. Jet fuel on-board caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of a portion of the headquarters of the US Department of Defense. Meanwhile, the fourth plane Flight 93 was flying over Pennsylvania towards Washington DC and its intended target, the Capitol Building. Because the plane had been delayed by 40 minutes in taking off, several passengers and flight attendants on board had already learned of events in New York and Washington via air-phones. At 10:07, a group of the passengers mounted an attempt to overpower the hijeckers. The last sounds on the black box recorder were seemingly the passengers attacking the cockpit door with a fire extinguisher, and the hijackers shouting “''Allahu Akbar''”, before the plane plunged towards the ground. Flight 93 crashed in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania. At 9:59am, 10 minutes before the four plane crashed, the horror in New York took a catastrophic turn when the outer columns of the South Tower of the World Trade Center finally gave way. The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel. The tower collapsed, as evacuated office workers ran in panic to try and outpace the billowing debris clouds. In the aftermath the police began evacuating the entire Lower Manhattan area south of Canal Street, including more than 1 million residents, workers and tourists. At 10:28 am, the North Tower also collapsed, 102 minutes after being struck by Flight 11. Hospitals stood by anticipating a flood of injured from “''Ground Zero''”, the site where the towers once stood, but slowly it became clear that there would be no living coming out. Many emergency services officers were in the towers at the time of the collapse, struggling to fight the fire and save trapped office workers; New Yorkers would wake up the next day to the chirping of hundreds of electronic locators worn by firemen. Miraculously six people were pulled out alive from the pile of steel and concrete. At 8:30 pm, President Bush addressed a stunned nation from the Oval Office announcing an aggressive new policy towards terrorism, “''We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts, and those who harbour them''”. In many cases the immediate US government response to the crisis was the first time that procedures were put into practice, that had been written during the Cold War with a nuclear strike in mind. President Bush spent the hours on Air Force One, while Vice President Cheney worked from the bunker underneath the east wing of the White House. At 9:42 am, for the first time in history, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounds all civilian aircraft over or bound for the continental United States. Some 3,300 commercial flights and 1,200 private planes were guided to airports in Canada and the United States over the next two-and-a-half hours, and would remain grounded for two days, stranding tens of thousands of people throughout the United States. The September 11 attacks were an enormous tactical success for al-Qaeda. Not since the abduction and murder of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics in 1972, had such massive global television audiences witnessed a terrorist attack unfold in real time. If al-Qaeda had been largely unknown before, it now became a household name. The attacks were widely condemned by the governments around the world, including by countries traditionally considered hostile to the United States: in Iran, huge crowds attended a candlelit vigils and 60,000 spectators observed an impeccable minute's silence at Tehran's football stadium; in Cuba, the government expressed its solidarity and offered medical facilities to help; and Colonel Gaddafi of Libya, President Putin of Russia, and a spokesperson for North Korea condemned the attacks. A total of 2,996 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, the worst loss of life due to a terrorist incident in world history and the deadliest foreign attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. At the World Trade Center, 2,763 were confirmed dead, including 343 firefighters and paramedics, 60 police officers, and the 157 who were aboard the planes. At the Pentagon, 189 people were killed, including 64 passengers and crew of Flight 77. In Pennsylvania, 44 people died when Flight 93 crash-landed. There were also innumerable acts of extraordinary heroism: flight attendants who calmly relayed information on the hijackers that would help the FBI determine the perpetrators were al-Qaeda; office workers who helped others evacuated the Twin Towers, and went back to save more, only to die in the collapsed; volunteers who risked their own lives to search for survivors in the smoking pile of debris of what remained of the World Trade Center; and a group of the strangers who sacrificed themselves to try and take back Flight 93. In the weeks that followed, Americans struggled to find their footing in a world known as “''post 9/11''”. In May 2002, a ceremony marked the end of the eight and a half month clean-up at Ground Zero. In July 2004, the national commission into the 9/11 terrorist attack issued its final report, and concluded “''this was a failure of policy, management, capability, and, above all, a failure of imagination." Maybe inevitably, the 9/11 terrorist attacks have generated almost as many conspiracy theories as the assassination of John F. Kennedy: that the authorities had advanced knowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignoring them; or that the collapse of the World Trade Centre was the result of a controlled demolition. Conspiracy theorists claim these were supposedly motivated by a desire to justify the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and advance US geopolitical interests. United States of Bush II At the end of Bill Clinton's eight years in the White House, the victory of George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore in the presidential election of 2000 was one of the closest and most controversial in US history. The presidency hinged on the outcome in Florida, where the vote was on a knife edge. The issue was complicated by the fact that some Florida voting machines had malfunctioned, failing to cleanly punch a hole in the ballot paper; a situation known as a “''hanging chad”. The issue was decided after a five week legal battle that eventually reached the Supreme Court, which concluded that a state-wide recount with elaborate and contested ground rules should not go ahead. The controversial 5–4 decision effectively awarded the presidency to Bush. President George W. Bush (2001-09) took office during a period of economic recession in the wake of the bursting of the Dot-Com Bubble; excessive speculation on Internet-based companies with highly questionable business models that quickly collapsed. Bush had campaigned as a “compassionate conservative,” the centrepiece of which was a $1.35 trillion tax-cut bill that he signed into law in June 2001. Like Ronald Reagan before him, Bush’s tax-cuts were successful in stimulating the economy, if not in dealing with the ever increasing inequality gap. Also like Reagan, Bush failed to control spending especially on the military, with the result that the budget surpluses left by the Clinton administration was a thing of the past by 2002. Bush also implemented the most comprehensive education reforms in a generation with the No Child Left Behind Act, although the results were later widely criticised, due to the over-reliance on standardised tests, and disproportionate fining of schools in deprived areas. Coming eight months into the new president's term of office, the events of 11 September 2001 ensured the foreign policy would dominate the Bush administration. In their aftermath, Bush told the American public that the country was now engaged in a global War on Terrorism, and would make no distinction between the terrorists, and the nations that harboured them. A comprehensive strategy to protect the United States from future terrorist attacks was formed with the creation of the cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, and the Patriot Act which granted the government unprecedented intelligence gathering powers. For a time, this secretly included the monitoring of international phone calls and emails made by US citizens, without first obtaining a court warrant. Meanwhile, evidence quickly mounted of al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the events of 11 September 2001. The Taliban government in Afghanistan refused repeated US demands to extradite Osama bin Laden and to dismantle terrorist training facilities. The Bush administration was able to assemble an international military coalition, including Britain and crucially neighbouring Pakistan. On 7 October 2001, they launched Operation Enduring Freedom against Afghanistan, which quickly toppled the Taliban government and routed al-Qaeda fighters; the War in Afghanistan (2001-present). However, the Taliban leadership and Osama bin Laden himself proved elusive, and remained so throughout Bush’s time in office. As the conflict raged on, United States military forces began transferring Taliban and suspected al-Qaeda members to a special prison at Guantánamo Bay, a permanent US naval base in south-eastern Cuba. At its peak more than 700 prisoners were held there as terror detainees, indefinitely and without trial because the base was outside US legal jurisdiction. The Bush administration also used legally questionable means to assert that prisoners were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions. As a result, many were subject to “''enhanced interrogation techniques''”, which in the opinion of various international organisations, including the Red Cross, amounted to torture. The scandal became public when torture techniques developed at Guantánamo Bay were also used at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The CIA also had "black sites" in numerous countries including Poland and Romania. In 2005, the CIA destroyed videotapes depicting prisoners being interrogated; an internal justification was that they were so horrific, that the criticism for their destruction was nothing compared to what it would be if the tapes had ever got into public domain. It becomes one of the most controversial aspects of US policy, and undermined the moral and ethical justification of the War on Terror. In September 2002, President Bush focused world attention on Iraq, with the strong support of Britain’s Tony Blair. The two western leaders accused Saddam Hussein’s government of having ties to al-Qaeda, and of continuing to possess and develop Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). This was in contravention of the UN treaty that had ended the First Gulf War. In November 2002, Saddam readmitted weapons inspectors, but Bush and Blair refused to accept the inspectors findings, based on what would prove to be inaccurate intelligence reports. Both leaders expressed to the public a confidence in the intelligence, far beyond that of their own national security agencies. Failing to persuade the United Nations to authorise invasion, they decided to take military action without authority. In March 2003, the United States, Britain, and a small international coalition launched a controversial but successful invasion of Iraq that drove Saddam from Baghdad; the War in Iraq (2003-present). No such WMD have ever subsequently been found, and it seemed at the time to many that the real purpose had always been the removal of Saddam Hussein. George W. Bush and Tony Blair would later be widely criticised for their decision to invade Iraq, for presenting WMD intelligence with unwarranted certainty, failing to exhaust peaceful alternatives, and undermining the authority of the United Nations. Yet victory and regime change in the brief wars in Afghanistan and Iraq left a power vacuum that soon plunged both countries into a cycle of insurgent violence and sectarian anarchy. George W. Bush was re-elected to the White House in 2004, defeating the surprisingly weak John Kerry whose history as a Vietnam protester didn't help him. However, numerous events soon saw his popularity enter terminal decline. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina stuck the south-eastern United States, claiming more than 1,800 lives, and devastating New Orleans where a storm surge flooded 20% of the city. The Bush administration was widely condemned for the slow and mismanaged federal relief effort; days after the storm itself had passed, thousands of mostly African-American residents suffered in appalling conditions, and several died of thirst and exhaustion. In December 2005, The New York Times exposed the extensive government monitoring of phone and email communications of US citizens. The Bush administration insisted that it was justified in response to 9/11, but subsequent efforts in Congress to provide a legal basis for the spying became mired in debate and only passed in July 2008. Meanwhile, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not going well, continuing to claim US casualties, and with costs ballooning from the originally promised $60 billion to almost $200 billion. The wars increasingly seemed to lack any defined objectives for victory or an exit strategy. Also, the ongoing scandal of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, was reignited in December 2007 when The New York Times exposed the destruction by the CIA of videotapes depicting prisoners being interrogated. Bush also pushed for immigration reform, which received criticism from many conservatives, and eased environmental regulations, which received criticism from many liberals. Finally, between 2007 and 2010, a massive housing bubble based on sub-prime mortgage began to deflate, prompting a nationwide banking crisis, and contributing to tipping the US economy into recession. A $700 billion emergency bail-out of the housing and banking industries only added to the now multi-trillion-dollar US national debt. George W. Bush left office in January 2009, leaving behind much unfinished business, an approval rating of 19%, a country increasingly politically divided, and with the international standing of the United States undermined many of his actions. War on Terror in Afghanistan In the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, evidence quickly mounted of al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the events in New York and Washington. Less than two weeks afterward, President George W. Bush sent a demand to the Taliban government in Afghanistan to hand over Osama bin Laden and close down his training camps. The response of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was that he was unable to do so, pleading ignorance of bin Laden’s whereabouts. However he was also no doubt reluctant to surrender a guest who shares his fundamentalist views, who had provided financial support to his regime, and whose forces were potentially as powerful as the Taliban. The Bush administration was able to assemble an international military coalition, initially with Britain and Canada, and later over 40 countries. Crucially this included neighbouring Pakistan, after President Pervez Musharraf bowed to US pressure, despite having had long ties to the Taliban. On 7 October 2001, less than four weeks after 9/11, the coalition under US General Tommy Franks launched Operation Enduring Freedom, which began with an intensive bombing campaign against Taliban military installations and al-Qaeda camps. The ground campaign started covertly with a CIA team forming alliances with anti-Taliban factions in Afghanistan, primarily the Northern Alliance, who had been on the losing side in the mid-1990s during the Taliban’s rise to power. US officials hoped that by partnering with Afghans they could avoid deploying large forces to Afghanistan, and avoid being drawn into a protracted occupation, as had happened in the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89). With the US-led coalition providing just 1,800 troops as well as logistical support, by late October the Northern Alliance began to overtake a series of towns formerly held by the Taliban. On 13 November, just five weeks after the invasion began, they captured the capital, Kabul. Then on 7 December, the Taliban surrendered Kandahar, their spiritual home city, and it looked to many that the war was over. However, because Washington wanted to get in and out of Afghanistan quickly, there were few troops deployed to chase the fleeing Taliban and al-Qaeda member. Although George W. Bush assured the American public that, “''Terrorists who once occupied Afghanistan now occupy cells at Guantanamo Bay''”, few of the senior leadership were captured. Mohammed Omar and the prime target Osama bin Laden slipped across the porous border into the northern Pakistan tribal lands. In the aftermath of the brief war, to avoid another tribal civil war in Afghanistan, the country now needed a leader acceptable to all; the Northern Alliance represented the Uzbeks, Turkmen and others of the north of the country, while the Taliban had been drawn from the majority Pashtun of the south. The man chosen was a little-known Pashtun warlord named Hamid Karzai (2001-2014). Thus by early 2002, there was a strong feeling in Washington of “''mission accomplished''”. The new Afghan government was in the process of dismantling the worst policies of the Taliban regime: allowing a role for women, freedom of the press, and eventually the first democratically elected head of state. From the start, the Americans had made it clear that they were not there to rebuild Afghanistan; that was a job for Hamid Karzai. However, they left for him an almost impossible task. As a former minor warlord, Karzai had no militia of his own; Northern Alliance forces had only been bought temporarily with American money. The country outside Kabul quickly fell to lawlessness, and opium cultivation boomed; Afghanistan soon became the supplier of 90 percent of the world’s opium. His government was made up of other former warlords, whose corruption had allowed the Taliban to rise to power, and corruption quickly beset this new government too. With the United States soon focused almost exclusively on the War in Iraq, Pakistan’s pursuit of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in their territory also became increasingly half-hearted; in any case, they were easily hidden within and protected by her own Pashtun minority. With a power vacuum in Afghanistan outside Kabul, by mid-2003, the Taliban were slipping back across the porous Pakistani-Afghan border. Ongoing violence increased steeply in 2005 with the adoption of booby-trap and suicide bombings. The Taliban’s resurgence was helped by a rise in anti-American and anti-Western sentiment among Afghans, in the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal at US detention facilities, and widespread corruption in the Afghan government. In 2006, NATO took over command of the peacekeeping forces across the country, reflecting the greater need for US resources in Iraq. NATO’s approach was to try and extend government control beyond the immediate surrounds of Kabul, with the British leading in Helmand, the Dutch in Orūzgān, and Canadians in Kandahar. This not only exposed the coalition forces to the Taliban insurgents, but placed them in the middle of inter-tribal conflicts, warring drug cartels, or simply locals who resented foreign intrusion. Inevitably casualties soured, and it failed to stem the violence now spreading across much of the country. By early 2007, bomb blasts even in Kabul were increasingly familiar. With Afghanistan quickly becoming a failed state, in 2009 all eyes turned to new US president Barrack Obama for fresh thinking in a conflict where the allies had won the war but lost the peace. War on Terror in Iraq In the aftermath of the First Gulf War (1990-91), Saddam Hussein was obliged to divest Iraq of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), including nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and long-range missiles. However Iraqi authorities made every effort to frustrate the UN weapons inspections there to ensure compliance. Even Bill Clinton’s three-day bombing campaign in 1998, failed to alter Saddam’s steadfast refusal to cooperate, alleging that the inspectors were spying for the US. The situation dramatically changed with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The administration of George W. Bush began actively debating an invasion of Iraq almost immediately, though no clear evidence linked Saddam with the attacks. Iraq was a destabilising force in the Middle East, was believed to still possess WMD based on what would prove to be inaccurate intelligence reports, and, while not a major backer of terrorism, had provided some support to Palestinians and was virulently anti-American. Some in the administration also believed that establishing a democracy in Iraq would encourage the growth of democracy elsewhere in the Middle East, and lead to the overthrow of authoritarian regimes hostile to US interests. In November 2002, at the insistence of the United States, and with the strong support of Britain’s Tony Blair, the UN demanded that Iraq re-admit weapons inspectors. After some initial wrangling, inspectors were readmitted into Iraq, and they subsequently reported in January 2003 that that there was no plausible evidence of a revival of a weapons program in Iraq. The international community soon differed on the degree of Iraq’s cooperation, led by the United States and Britain. Both leaders expressed in public a confidence that Saddam still possessed WMD, far beyond that of their own national intelligence agencies. These they alleged might either be used against Iraq’s neighbours, or find their way into the hands of international terrorists. However, other countries, particularly France, Germany, and Russia were not convinced, and sought to extend inspections and give the Iraqis further time to resolve some discrepancies identified in the report. Having failed to persuade the United Nations to authorise invasion, the US and Britain declared their intention to take military action without authority. The decision prompted a series of massive anti-war demonstrations around the world, in more than 600 cities in 60 countries. A coordinated day of protest on 15 February 2003, saw between 6 and 36 million people taking part in rallies; many accept 15 February as the largest protest event in human history. Some of the largest demonstrations took place in Europe, with the event in Rome gathering about 3 million people; listed as the largest anti-war rally in history in the Guinness Book of World Records. Protests in the United States were considerably smaller, but still saw crowds of over 300,000 in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Anti-war rallies continued throughout the war. In the United States, supporters of the war referred to anti-war protesters as a "vocal minority", but by the summer of 2005 according to Gallop Polls a majority of Americans believed the war had been a mistake. No WMD have ever subsequently been found, and it seemed to many at the time (and still does) that the real purpose of the two western leaders had always been the removal of Saddam Hussein; unfinished business of 1991, when Bush senior left Saddam in power. On 20 March, the military invasion of Iraq began. First a series of “''shock and awe''” air-attacks were launch against government and military installations in Iraq as a spectacular displays of force to break the enemy will, and hopefully decapitate her leadership. A bunker where Saddam Hussein was believed to be was specifically targeted. However, he appeared on television later that same day condemning the attacks, in what was the first of a series on intelligence failures; it was later discovered there wasn’t even a bunker at the location. In fact out of 60 precision airstrikes against Iraqi leadership targets, none were successful, and many resulted in civilian casualties. Many observers had expected a lengthy aerial campaign, but the ground invasion began from Kuwait the next day with about 130,000 US troops and 45,000 British. There was a fear that the Iraqis would engage in a scorched-earth policy, setting fire to Iraq’s southern oil wells. The US forces were to advance north on Baghdad in a pincer east via Nasiriyah and to the west via Karbala, while the British would secure Iraq’s second city, Basra. The allies had tried to provoke a popular uprising against Saddam by negotiating with the Shia majority and specifically targeting Saddam’s empty palaces, but this largely failed, in part because the West had failed to support Iraqi insurrections after the First Gulf War. Instead many joined the Fedayeen, a heavily armed paramilitary force. The Iraqi regular army, the Republican Guard, did not quickly capitulate as had happened in the previous war, but for the most part was hopelessly disorganized, with command and control thrown into chaos by airstrikes and Saddam often overruling his generals. The strongest resistance often came from the Fedayeen, especially in the urban areas and against supply lines. With allied aircraft having inflicted heavy damage on Republican Guard units, the US forces advanced rapidly, and on 4 April they took control of Baghdad’s international airport. Over the next several days, US forces staged a series of risky raids deep into the capital, eventually securing a foothold in the heart of the city at one of Saddam’s palaces. On April 9 resistance in Baghdad largely collapsed. That that same day, Basra was also finally secured by the British. Resistance there had collapsed when an allied airstrike was mistakenly believed to have killed the commander in the city, Ali Hassan al-Majid, commonly known as “Chemical Ali”. The war in the north was complicated somewhat by Turkey’s refusal to cooperate with the allies. However, US paratroopers supporting Kurdish rebels quickly seized the northern cities of Kirkuk, Mosul, and lastly Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit on 13 April. Isolated groups of regime loyalists continued to fight on subsequent days, but the US president declared to the many critics and protestors of this unabashed invasion that all major combat operations had ceased on 1 May. The Iraqi leaders fled into hiding and were the object of an intense manhunt. Saddam Hussein himself was captured on 13 December 2003 on a remote farm compound near his home city of Tikrit. After an extensive search of the area, he was eventually found in a spider-hole in the ground. He was integrated by US officials for months, before being handed over to the Iraqi authorities for trial. He was subsequently convicted of crimes against humanity, and executed in December 2006. Many people did celebrated the end of Saddam's regime, although images of cheering crowds tearing down his statues remain controversial, as they were largely stage managed by the military and the media. Most Iraqi civilians were simply stunned. Due to the nature of the invasion through urban areas, the civilian casualties were high, approximately 7,500. Due to the poor quality of intelligence, numerous home were targeted for precision airstrikes. Due to the speed of the invasions, civilians often had no idea they were approaching allied army positions, and were fired upon by jittery soldiers. Although the invasion went largely as planned with about 150 allied deaths, the occupation of Iraq would prove far far harder. Following the invasion, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) assumed the governance of Iraq, headed by a senior American diplomat, with an appointed Iraqi governing council with limited powers. The CPA disbanded the Iraqi Army, and excluded Baath Party members from the new Iraqi government. For example, this included some 40,000 school teachers who had joined the party simply to keep their jobs. This only helped bring about a chaotic atmosphere to the post-invasion occupation. Restoring law and order would proved a nearly impossible task. An insurgency against the US-led occupation of Iraq emerged almost immediately, first by loyalists of the former regime, who formed guerilla forces. These soon became dozens of separate militias, and were gradually joined by foreign fighters from other Muslim countries, including a branch of the al-Qaeda network. The guerilla war was helped by a rise in anti-American and anti-Western sentiment among Iraqis, in the wake of the prisoner abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that came to widespread public attention in April 2004. Meanwhile, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam’s regime, there were a string of violent reprisals against the former ruling clique. As a Sunni regime ruling over a majority Shia population, inevitably these increasingly took on the character of inter-ethnic clashes between Sunnis and Shias. By 2004, Sunni and Shia militias were fighting against each other, as well as against coalition forces, as Iraq descended into civil war. The city of Fallujah was especially volatile, where the bloodiest battle of the entire Iraq War was fought in November 2004; 110 allies were killed and 613 wounded. In retrospect civil war in Iraq seems to have been inevitable: the region was both the border between Arabs and Persians, and Shia and Sunni Islam; as a nation it was a wholly artificial relic of the colonial era, with no basis in history; the Iraqis failed to develop a true sense of national identity due to Saddam’s frequent oppression of minorities; when the authoritarian regime crumbled the people fell to tribalism. Meanwhile, the first multi-party elections since the invasion took place in January 2005. The Iraqi parliament subsequently approved a new constitution, which was followed by fresh elections in December. The minority Sunni population largely boycotted the first election, but participated more fully in the second thanks to the urgings of Sunni clerics. It also saw relatively low levels of violence with some insurgent groups declaring a ceasefire. President Bush frequently pointed to this election as a sign of progress in rebuilding Iraq. However, post-election violence threatened to plunge the nation into a full-scale civil war. In January 2007, President Bush announced a controversial new approach in Iraq; a "Surge" in US troops numbers to help the Iraqis clear and secure more territory under government control; and an increased focus on training Iraqi military personnel. Initiated against strong opposition in Congress, the surge increased allied troop numbers from about 150,000 to 180,000, and was largely successful in dampening violence; a fact later acknowledged even by its most vocal critics. However, with the US military under severe strain, troop numbers began to be lowered again by the end of the year. Nevertheless, if the wider purpose of the surge had been to allow political reconciliation among the warring Iraqi factions, it failed to pull Iraq back from the abyss of a failed state. By the end of the Bush presidency, a timetable had been put in place for the withdrawal of US, British and coalition forces from Iraq. More than 4527 American troops were killed in the Iraq War and 322 troops from other allied forces. Estimates of Iraqi casualties vary greatly; the Iraq Body Count Project estimate civilian deaths by all sides at between 110,937 and 121,227. The war and its fallout have meanwhile fuelled anti-American sentiment around the world, and coloured US diplomacy with almost every country in the world in some form. Iraq has been locked in the cycle of vicious anarchy ever since, becoming the perfect training ground for the very terrorist that the US wanted to eliminate in the first place. A glimpse of optimism came throughout the Islamic world with the Arab Spring of 2010, but it would only lead to violent power struggles and still ongoing conflicts, that some refer to as the Arab Winter. Terrorism after 9/11 While the War on Terror could be said to have largely dismantling al-Qaeda itself, the 9/11 terrorist attacks inspired other Islamic fundamentalists to executed numerous attacks in several parts of the world. A few were directly linked to al-Qaeda, but most demonstrated the worrying trend of home-grown Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. In October 2002, three bomb attacks on the tourist district of Bali in Indonesia killed 202 people, mainly Australians. In May 2003, a series of suicide bombings in Casablanca, Morocco killed 33. In November 2003, four truck bomb attacks in Istanbul, Turkey left 57 dead and wounded some 700. On 11 March 2004, 10 explosions occurred aboard 4 commuter trains during the morning rush hour in Madrid killing 192 people and injuring around 2,000; the deadliest terrorist attack carried out in the history of Spain. On 7 July 2005, a three coordinated terrorist suicide bomb attacks on the London transport network during the morning rush hour, killing 52 and wounding more than 700. Arguably the most coordinated attack since 9/11 occurred in Mumbai, India in November 2008. 10 Jihadists carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks in the tourist district of Mumbai that lasted for four days, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308. In the post-9/11 heightened security worldwide, presumably numerous other terrorist attacks were prevented, but the challenge in finding terrorist treats had become not finding them, but the overflow of so many potential threats. Britain of Tony Blair The 9/11 terrorist attacks and Tony Blair’s decision to closely ally himself with George W. Bush, became the defining moments for his legacy. A small minority of his own party opposed even military action in Afghanistan, but it was the War in Iraq that did most to undermine the standing of Blair. Not only were there widespread anti-war protests, with one in London in excess of 750,000 people, but it prompted several resignations by ministers, notably foreign minister Robin Cook. Yet, Blair remained steadfast in his conviction that Saddam possessed WMD and was an imminent threat. Following the ousting of Saddam, when no WMD were found, critics charged that the government had “sexed up” intelligence to justify the war. The war and its fallout also tainted Britain’s relations with her European Union partners, particularly France and Germany. Yet ever the consummate politician, Blair won re-election in 2005, albeit with a sharply reduced majority. However, the protracted Iraq war that increasingly looked like civil war sapped public and political support for Blair. In the aftermath of Islamic extremist bomb attacks in London on 7 July 2005, Blair’s government suffered a series of defeats in parliament, when many in his own party rebelled and voted with the opposition. In September 2006, he declared that he would stand down as prime minister within a year. After suffering major defeats in local elections in May 2007, Blair officially tendered his resignation, and was succeeded by Gordon Brown, his long-serving chancellor. Blair’s decade in office was marked by uninterrupted economic growth, while managing to place greater emphasis on social justice. He was Labours most electorally successful prime minister in history, and played a significant role in restoring peace to Northern Ireland. Yet for many, if not most, his legacy is entirely overshadowed by his role in the invasion of Iraq. Many people, including member of his own party, have demanded his trial in the International Criminal Court as a war criminal. In November 2008, Lord Bingham, the former British Law Lord, described the war as a serious violation of international law, and accused Britain and the United States of acting like a "world vigilante". The Chilcot Iraq Inquiry (2016) was damning in its criticism of Blair's actions, describing the 2003 war as unjustified, unnecessary, and legally questionable, and that Blair had not been completely honest with the British people in taking the country into war. Israeli-Lebanon War Meanwhile, Israel engaged in her own local War on Terror with the Second Israeli-Lebanese War (2006). Israel had occupied southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000 during the Lebanese Civil War. After her withdrawal, Hezbollah quickly took control of the area. Citing the continued Israeli internment of Lebanese militants in Israel, Hezbollah launched innumerable cross-border attacks, mostly artillery fire. On 12 July 2006, a Hezbollah cross-border raid ambushed a Humvees patrolling the border, killing three Israeli soldiers. Two other were abducted as leverage for a prisoner exchange. Israel refused to negotiate, and responded from 13 July with airstrikes on targets in Lebanon. A turning point in the war was the Qana Village Incident, in which an Israeli air strike killed 28 civilians including 16 children. In the aftermath, Israel came under intense international pressure to bring the conflict to a close, and responded with a ground invasion. Israeli soldiers were soon locked in intense and difficult guerilla fighting in southern Lebanon. On 12 August, the UN mediated a cease-fire, and deployed peacekeepers to southern Lebanon. In the aftermath, both sides claimed victory. Hezbollah survived this asymmetrical military conflict with Israel, neither defeated nor disarmed, and two years later negotiated the prisoner exchanged they’d wanted for the remains of the two abducted soldiers. For Israel, the next 10 years were among the quietest on her north border, although won at the heavy cost of 121 Israeli soldiers and 44 civilians. More than 1,191 Lebanese people were killed, although it’s difficult to distinguish between civilians and Hezbollah fighters; UNICEF estimated that 30% were children under the age of 13. In terms of the international response, the Western governments asserted Israel's right to self-defence, while Arab world was split between supporting and condemning Hezbollah, led by Iran and Saudi Arabia respectively. Some observers consider this part of an ongoing proxy war for influence between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the most powerful of the Middle Eastern countries. European Union Eastward Enlargement Two years after the introduction of the Euro, the European Union (EU) embarked on its greatest integration challenge. With the ending of the Soviet Eastern Bloc in the late 1980, the countries of Eastern Europe emerged as newly democratic but economically weak nations. During the mid-1990s, many submitted official applications for membership in the EU. While there was opposition, the EU emphasised that eastward expansion was "an historical opportunity" and "morally imperative" to consolidate democracy and the free-market in the former Eastern Bloc. The EU insisted on a series of reforms in preparation for membership, including: the consolidation of democratic systems and the rule of law; respect for human rights, personal freedom, and freedom of the press; and a functioning free-market economy. The EU also influenced improved regional relations with their neighbours. Ten nations eventually joined the European Union in 2004; eight former Communist states, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia; and two former British colonies, Cyprus and Malta. This was the largest single EU enlargement in terms of number of countries and people. Bulgaria and Romania would also join the EU, but not until 2007 after failing to meet some criteria. Due to concerns of mass migration from the new members, the old EU-15 were permitted to place transitional restrictions on freedom of movement up to May 2011. Most did such as Germany, Austria, Finland, and Denmark who retained the need for work permits, as did France depending on sector and region. Migration did cause controversy in those countries which did not place restrictions and saw a noticeable influx, creating the caricature of the "Polish Plumber" in the EU. Notably, Britain’s Tony Blair did not impose restrictions other than on welfare benefits. The British economy was booming at the time, leading to labour shortages, and the country was already struggling with illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe. By 2011 a UK census suggested about 1.1 million people had migrated from the 10 new members; Britain did place restrictions on the two poorest members Bulgaria and Romania. Arguably Tony Blair’s decision to allow unrestricted immigration in 2004 was the bigger single factor leading to the Brexit decision of 2015. The Eastern European countries have benefitted enormously from EU membership: Poland is now the 8th largest economy in Europe by GDP; and Romania posted economic growth of 6% in 2016, larger than any other EU member. Whether enlargement brought economic benefits to the old EU-15 is far more controversial, although supporters claim that they also benefitted from the opening up of new export markets, and cheap labour for service industries. Russia of Vladimir Putin Three months after succeeding Boris Yeltsin, relatively unknown acting president Vladimir Putin (1999-present) won a four-year term of his own in the March 2000 elections. He proved so popular that he won a second term in 2004 by a landslide, garnering more than 70% of the vote. In his youth, Putin had been a firm believer in the Communist system, so much so that he joined the KGB at 22 years old; apparently he tried to join at 17 but was told to get a law degree first. He spent most of his KGB career stationed in East Germany, eventually reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. Some have described his time in the KGB as somewhat dull, but he gained the reputation as a very efficient man, who could get the job done with the minimum of fuss. He quit the KGB in 1991, on the second day of the coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, having decided that the Soviet system was doomed. He entered politics, and during the Yeltsin era of instability, corruption, and rising criminality, Putin became known as a humble and honest man who went about his work in a very organised, efficient and effective way. This work ethic carried him to the top in very short order. President Yeltsin appointed Putin as his deputy Chief of Staff in March 1997, and in July 1998 head of the Federal Security Service, the successor to the KGB. In a move that surprised many, Yeltsin appointed him prime minister in August 1999, and four months later announced to the world that Vladimir Putin would be his successor. As president, Vladimir Putin went to work slowly and methodically deal with the many problems facing Russia. He quickly set about restructuring the government, and centralising power in the Kremlin. Russia was divided into seven new federal districts, headed by governors appointed by the president, tasked with enforcing law, rooting out corruption, and bringing independent-minded regions to heel. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin rarely changed his prime minister and cabinet, and proved adept at working with parliament to pass legislation, thus creating an atmosphere of political stability. He also worked to reduce the chaos of political parties in Russia; during the 1990s over 100 parties had been registered, but by 2008 there were only seven. In terms of economic reform, Putin simplified and streamlined the tax system resulting in a dramatic increase of tax collected. He encouraged foreign investment to help modernise and expand Russian industry. Russia also sought to promote the sale of oil, gas, and arms to improve her international trade deficit. Putin was very blunt and honest with the Russian people, in stark contrast to the former Communist leaders. Unlike Yeltsin who’d criticised almost everything related to the Soviet era, Putin appealed to the people’s patriotism for pride in such things as her victory in World War II and former superpower status. The reforms implemented by Putin, as well as his demeanour, produced political stability and economic vitality that gave Russia a sense of confidence during the early 21st century that she was poised upon the long path back to her former glory. The infamous Oligarchs that emerged during the Yeltsin era were a major blockade in Vladimir Putin’s plans, but they were also too powerful to simply destroy. A few were stripped of their holding, especially those in the media that consistently contradicted the reports of government-controlled stations. However, he made a deal with a some of the very wealthiest, such as oil and gas tycoon Gennady Timchenko, banker Yury Kovalchuk, railway magnate Vladimir Yakunin, and industrialist Sergey Chemezov. Together they would bring stability to the country, but under a more managed democracy. Putin made it clear early on that if the Oligarchs followed his policies, they could have all the freedoms they wanted, but if they crossed the line, it didn’t matter how wealthy and powerful they were. As case in point was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the head of the Yukos oil company. With the War in Iraq and rocketing oil prices, Putin attempted to impose higher taxes on oil exports. Khodorkovsky successfully blocked the move by funding both liberal and Communist opponents of the Kremlin. In response, Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003 on charges of corruption, and Yukos was bankrupted and largely nationalised. Khodorkovsky was eventually pardoned in 2013 and has lived in exile ever since. Meanwhile, since the First Chechen War (1996), the breakaway republic of Chechnya had splintered into a land of warring warlords, increasingly influenced by Islamic extremists. The Second Chechen War (1999-2000) was triggered on 2 August 1999 when malcontent Chechen warlords launched an incursion into the neighbouring Russian province of Dagestan. Russian troops descended on the region and successfully combatted the dishevelled insurgents. During this conflict, the ongoing threat of Chechen terrorist attacks in Russia peaked, with four explosions in apartment blocks across three Russian cities, killing 293 people and injuring more than a thousand. Some conspiracy theorists accused Putin of orchestrating these attacks to rally the people against the Chechens once again, but no strong evidence exists. On 26 August 1999, a much larger and far more prepared Russian army entered Chechnya. By May 2000, the full-scale invasion was largely successful in a conventional warfare sense, albeit at the cost of many civilian lives. Media coverage was tightly controlled, to suppress images of this horrible war. With the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Putin would garner considerable international support for his war against Islamic terrorism, and garner considerable popularity at home for his unrelenting approach to Chechnya. The campaign ended the de-facto independence of Chechnya, though guerilla warfare continued in the region until 2009, and sporadic Chechen terrorist attacks in Moscow and other Russian cities have continued right down to the present day. Chechnya, ravaged by war, has become a recruiting ground for Islamic terror groups to draw upon. When Vladimir Putin first became president, the West was cautious because information was scarce on his background and standing on issues; many focused on his history in the KGB and feared him as a foe of democracy. However, one of his first acts as president was to approve the Start II arms reduction treaty, which had languished in parliament for four years. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he was one of the first foreign leaders to offer sympathy and support for President Bush’s campaign against terrorism. Nevertheless, Putin predominant focus was on strengthening Russia’s security and economic relations with Europe, as well as China and India. Many foreign leaders warmed to Putin’s cooler and more business-like attitude to foreign relations. However, Putin was wary of US unilateralism, and joined France and Germany in opposing the War in Iraq (2003). From this point US-Russian relations deteriorated rapidly. Putin had reacted calmly when the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June 2002, but now became increasingly critical of the US renewed pursuit of missile defence solutions. Meanwhile, the narrative of the White House and mainstream US media became increasingly anti-Putin. The definitive break in US-Russian relations came in February 2007, when Putin delivered a blistering attack on US foreign policy, criticising her attempts to monopolise global relations and asserting that no one feels safe under the so-called Pax Americana because of her failure to adhere to international law. The aftermath was marked by a surge in tension and rhetoric on both sides, and, though both sides denied it, the inevitable sense was of a new Cold War. For a considerable time, Russia did manage to maintain particularly strong relations with Germany, but even this changed with the Crimea Crisis. During his second term, Vladimir Putin’s popularity remained high, and speculation loomed that he might engineer a constitutional change to allow himself a third term as president. Instead, he surprised many observers by nominating prime minister Dmitry Medvedev as his successor for the 2008 elections. In turn, Medvedev announced that he would appoint Putin as his prime minister if elected, thus giving Putin a platform to continue his dominance of Russian politics. Medvedev was easily elected president, winning 70 percent of the vote. Putin has been widely criticised by Western commentators for undermining democracy and the rule of law in Russia during his tenure. Putin’s Unity Party have great advantage in term of media coverage, and state resources are mobilised in its support. Election monitoring groups generally report that the actual elections are free and fair, with all contestants able to campaign unhindered and with access to the media. However, monitoring groups were notably more critical of the 2008 election. China the Economic Superpower In the wake of the Tiananmen Square Incident, Jiang Zemin gradually took the helm of the world's largest country from the aging Deng Xiaoping, and was well established by the time Deng finally died in 1997. This third generation of leadership proved to be a capable successor, combining pragmatic reform-minded economic policies, with an insistence on maintaining strong Party control over the government. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen, China briefly became considered by many a virtual pariah state, with foreign trade embargoes imposed on her, but by the mid-1990s both sides had taken steps toward improved relations. Meanwhile, market reforms and economic growth continued at a fast pace, accompanied by low inflation; by 1999, China became the second largest economy in the world after the US. During the late 1990s, Jiang attempted to normalise the country’s uneasy relationship with the United States. In 1997, he paid a state visit to the US, drawing crowds protesting independence for Tibet and the Chinese democracy movement. China also deftly squeezed as much advantage as possible from events such as the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Yugoslav Wars and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in which two Chinese citizens died. Under Jiang's leadership, China also saw the peaceful handover of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997, and Macau from Portugal in 1999, with both territories largely retained their self-government and economic independence. China’s admission into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 was considered a significant step in normalising international relations and her further integration into the global economy. Jiang’s era also demonstrated a remarkable new smoothness to the transition of power in Communist China. As early 1992, Hu Jintao (2002-12) was appointed secretary of the Central Committee and heir apparent, then Vice Chairman in 1998, and Chairman in 2002 when Jiang stepped down. The first major crisis faced by China after Hu Jintao assuming power was the SARS public health crisis between 2002 and ‘03. Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is believed to have crossed species from bats to humans, and the outbreak in southern China caused an eventual 8,098 cases, resulting in 774 deaths reported in 37 countries, with the vast majority in China. With the subsequent global Bird Flu Panic of 2006, the wearing of surgical masks has since become more and more common to see in China. Meanwhile, Hu presided over nearly a decade of consistent economic growth that continued to astonish the world; averaging 10% GDP growth per year, and 13.1% in 2007. He showed himself to be a hard-liner in many respects. He seemed to be particularly aware of the dangers to authoritarian rule inherent in the internet, adopting strict regulations on internet chat sites, and blocking access to news and search engines at will. Most troubling of all was the government’s treatment of the Tibetan and lesser known Uighur minority groups, where activists sought independence. Hu responded by encouraging mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese to both frontier areas to dilute the restive populations, and by cracking down hard on dissidents. Human rights groups noted that thousands disappeared, never to be seen again. Hu's administration was brought under intense spotlight in 2008, with the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Commonly seen as a come-out party for Communist China, it was the most expensive Games ever held, costing US$40 billion. Many considered it as one of the most successful Olympic Games of all time, although protests against China's human rights record, with particular focus on Tibet, marred the international portion of the Olympic torch relay. It also allowed China to demonstrate her new sporting superpower status; China won the most gold medals at 51, and came second to the United States in the overall medal tally. The image of the Games was later badly affected by retrospective doping bans against dozens of countries, when samples were retested in the wake of the Russian Doping Scandal of 2016; 50 medals were stripped from the Beijing Games, more than any other. Category:Historical Periods